We’d all love to have pearly whites, but in practice, we usually get stained teeth far too often, ranging from off white all the way down to a yucky yellow color. But how to get rid of tooth stains? There are actually several different ways we can get those teeth back from yellow to dazzling pearls.

The first is simple: treat your teeth better. Most staining occurs due to poor oral hygiene, although drinking coffee often, smoking, and other factors can also cause staining. The easiest way to get rid of this staining is to brush more often, use mouth wash, and floss. This will prevent bacteria or fungus from growing on the outside of your teeth, which often causes staining. It’s recommended you brush after every meal, and floss almost as often… but who has time for that? Drinking water and swirling it in your mouth after drinking coffee or a flavored drink should help clean your teeth, and eating crunchy food does almost as good a job dislodging food as flossing.

Another way to to get rid of tooth stains is to use whitening products beyond toothpaste. It’s recommended you check with your dentist on doing this first though, you never know what kind of effect this may have on your teeth. Professional whitening is possible, but if you don’t want to pay so much at home whitening kits are available. These usually ask you to soak your teeth in the product, or apply the strips to your teeth, for a few hours or in some case while you sleep. But be careful when using at home kits, these products have been known to damage teeth, and make them brittle.

If both of these things fail, there are two possibilities. One is to apply veneers (sort of a white coating for your teeth) so that even if you’re teeth aren’t pearly, at least they’ll look like it. The other is to your see your dentist, if all this fails then it’s quite possible that there’s something seriously wrong with your teeth. At the very least, your dentist should be able to recommend a more effective way of making those teeth stain free.

So there you have it, how to get rid of tooth stains. Hopefully following this guide will wipe those stains away, and you’ll be smiling in no time.